Contents

Overview

Sokka and Toph attempt to help Aang find the Fire Lord in time for the eclipse, but Azula stalls them and the eclipse passes before they can find him. Meanwhile, Zuko confronts his father and vows to help Aang defeat him. Ozai attempts to kill his son with lightning, but Zuko redirects it and escapes. Iroh frees himself from jail and disappears. The invasion force is captured, so Aang and his friends flee on Appa and retreat to the Western Air Temple for safety as Zuko follows on an air balloon.

Synopsis

Aang rejoins the invasion force and reveals that the whole city has been abandoned. Sokka concludes that the Fire Lord must have expected the invasion and is likely hiding in a secret underground bunker. After some deliberation, they agree to continue with the invasion: the invasion force will continue toward the palace while Aang, Toph, and Sokka search for Fire Lord Ozai.

With the help of Toph's ability to see underground, she locates the secret bunker inside a nearby volcano. They pass through tunnels of gas and magma until they reach the metal bunker, which Toph opens using metalbending. They corner a Fire Nation noble and he tells them where the Fire Lord's chamber is. As the eclipse begins, Aang blasts open the door of the chamber, and to their great surprise, finds Azula waiting for them instead. Azula reveals she has known about the invasion for months and is not surprised to find Aang alive. Meanwhile, Zuko enters the chamber where his father is hiding.

Zuko approaches Ozai and explains he is there to tell the truth. Amused that Zuko chose the moment of an eclipse to face him, Ozai dismisses his guards. Zuko explains that it was Azula who supposedly killed the Avatar in Ba Sing Se, not him. Ozai wonders why she would lie, and Zuko reveals the Avatar is still alive and probably leading the invasion. Outraged upon hearing this news, Ozai orders his son to leave. However, Zuko refuses to leave and ignores his father's orders. Ozai threatens Zuko for his disobedience, but the latter pulls out his swords and demands that his powerless father sit and listen.

Azula refuses to tell Aang, Sokka, and Toph her father's location. Toph's lie-detecting ability proves ineffective on Azula, an expert liar. Two Dai Li agents, whom the princess brought back from Ba Sing Se, drop from the ceiling and use earthbending to protect her as Aang and Toph attack. The invasion forces start to take the capital city as all the firebenders are surrendering at the loss of their power.

Zuko tells his father that all he had ever wanted was for Ozai to love him, and that he had spent his days in exile trying to please him. He angrily berates Ozai for cruelly challenging him to a duel when he was only a child, before banishing him from the Fire Nation for simply speaking out of turn. Ozai claims the act was to teach Zuko respect, but the prince retorts it was cruel and wrong. He reveals his beliefs that the Fire Nation is doing wrong in the world, and that they lie to themselves into thinking they are benefactors spreading their greatness to other nations. Zuko explains the Fire Nation has a responsibility to bring about an era of peace if the world is to survive. Ozai laughs and mocks Zuko, realizing that his older brother must have influenced him. Zuko proudly agrees.

Aang, Sokka, and Toph continue to fight Azula and her Dai Li agents, both of whom they eventually incapacitate. Though powerless, Azula proves far too agile for Aang or the others to take down. Sokka stops Aang and Toph from pursuing Azula any further, realizing she is just baiting them into wasting all their remaining time. As they attempt to leave, Azula taunts Sokka by hinting that she has captured, imprisoned, and possibly tortured Suki, which enrages the warrior who rushes toward her. Azula prepares to stab him with a concealed dagger, but Toph senses her movement, promptly disarms her, and pins her against the wall with a rock. Sokka seizes Azula and demands she tell him where Suki is.

Zuko confesses that his uncle, Iroh, was more of a father to him than Ozai had ever been. He plans to free Iroh from his prison and beg for his forgiveness. After Ozai continues to mock him, Zuko openly states his intention to join the Avatar and help him stop the Fire Nation. Ozai wonders why he would go through such trouble, seeing that the Fire Lord lay powerless before him. Zuko puts his swords away and states he knows his own destiny now and that it was Aang's destiny alone to defeat Ozai. As Zuko departs the chamber, Ozai tries to bait him into staying longer with knowledge of what happened to his mother six years prior.

Zuko demands to know what happened, and Ozai reveals the circumstances regarding the disappearance of Princess Ursa. When Ozai mocked the death of Iroh's son, Fire LordAzulon ordered him to kill Zuko as punishment so that he would feel the loss of a child, too. However, Ursa swore to protect Zuko at any cost and came up with a plan to which Ozai agreed. Ozai implies that Ursa arranged Azulon's death so Zuko would be spared and he himself would become Fire Lord. As a result, Ursa was banished for her treason. Zuko realizes his mother may still be alive.

Ozai threateningly states that banishment is far too merciful a penalty for treason, and that Zuko's punishment for betraying the Fire Nation will be far worse. Sensing the end of the eclipse, Ozai lashes out and shoots a powerful bolt of lightning at his son. Zuko catches the lightning and redirects it back toward Ozai, causing an explosion which blasts the Fire Lord into the wall. Zuko quickly escapes the chamber as Ozai seethes with rage.

Meanwhile, Azula, too, realizes she has regained her firebending and escapes from Sokka and the others. She reveals her father's location, believing he could defeat them now that the eclipse is over. Sokka feels ashamed for wasting their time, but Aang thinks he could still face the Fire Lord without the eclipse. Sokka and Toph do not think it is a good idea and convince him to retreat.

Aang, Sokka, and Toph return to the battle site, as fleets of hot air balloons and zeppelins emerge from behind the palace and attempt to attack the invasion force. Zuko attempts to free Iroh from prison, but discovers that Iroh has already busted out of his cell and is long gone, leaving behind dazed and unconscious guards.

The troops attempt to stop the fleet of airships, but realize they are outmatched. The airships obliterate the submarines, thus making the invasion team's escape impossible. Hakoda tells Aang and the younger fighters to flee while the adults remain behind to be taken as prisoners. After saying their goodbyes, the rest of the gang, along with Haru, Teo, and The Duke, get onto Appa; as they rise into the air, Aang states that the Western Air Temple will be a safe place for them to stay for a while. Azula watches from one of the airships as the group escapes, but she chooses not to pursue them, confident that they will have to return someday.

Zuko follows Appa on a hot air balloon with a look of determination on his face.

Production notes

Transcript

Series continuity

When Zuko is walking away from Ozai after his confrontation, only half of his face, the unscarred side, is shown. This bears a very close resemblance to when Zuko entered the throne room in "The Awakening", where it showed the scarred side of Zuko's face. During the eclipse when he betrayed his father and made the right decision, the good side was shown and when Zuko was still loyal to his father just before the meeting, the scarred side was shown.

The way Zuko walked out of the room after "confronting" his father mirrors the way Ursa walked out of his room after bidding him a goodbye after she was banished.

Azula states that she has known about the invasion for months. She found out about it in "The Guru" through Kuei, when she was disguised as a Kyoshi Warrior.

Toph interrogates Azula and adds that she can tell if she is lying. This "lie-detector" ability was revealed in "Lake Laogai". Azula appears immune to it, able to lie without any sort of bodily reaction.

In "Zuko Alone", part of the story of Zuko's childhood is revealed, specifically the disappearance of Zuko's mother, Ursa. In this episode, it is revealed that she may still be alive after being exiled for "vicious, treasonous things".

The war balloon, the smaller Fire Nation airships, in this episode were copied from the war balloon originally built by the mechanist and improved by Sokka that was captured by the fire soldiers at the end of "The Northern Air Temple".

The crest on Hakoda's uniform is the same on Princess Yue's engagement necklace.

This is the first time Azula has said the name of an original Team Avatar member out loud: Sokka's. She would later call Katara by name in The Search Part 1.

This episode continues to emphasize the fact that Azula lets events unfold by themselves up until the last minute before she strikes, as first seen in the "The Avatar State".

This is the second time an invasion has been planned, including a part one and part two sequel. The first one was when Admiral Zhao invaded the Northern Water Tribe. The end of the invasion of this episode is also the same as the "The Siege of the North, Part 2" when the invasion failed.

Goofs

Aang arrives at the throne room long before the eclipse begins. This seems to contradict the original plan of taking the Fire Lord down when he is powerless. However, Aang probably expected a little resistance to slow his arrival, or to have to sneak around the city full of people. When it turned out to be empty, he arrived more quickly than expected.

The Fire Nation was under a total solar eclipse. As the sun was completely blocked out, it should have been very dark. Instead, the lighting is barely darker than normal; in fact, it is lighter than it is normally used for evenings in the show.

As Aang, Sokka and Toph run through the tunnels of the volcano they walk past Qin who notices them before they notice him. It seems unlikely Toph would not sense him, given that they are in tunnels of earth.

After Azula reveals she brought Dai Li agents from Ba Sing Se and Aang air swipes at her, the two doors Aang knocked down are missing.

In chapter thirteen of Book One, "The Blue Spirit", and chapter thirteen of Book Two, "The Drill", it is shown that Aang can run "faster than wind". Here, however, Aang cannot keep up with Azula despite his running abilities.

When Azula taunts Sokka to the point that he runs toward her, Toph pins her left hand to the wall at her left side. However, in the next shot, she has both hands pinned to the wall above her head.

A hot air balloon is lifted by hot air. This hot air would most likely burn a person, yet Aang flies through one and emerges safely without any burns.

Trivia

During the original airing of this episode, the title card for this episode read chapter ten. On subsequent airings, the name was changed to the correct number, chapter eleven.

Nickelodeon, as it had done for the Fury of Aang ("The Library" and "The Desert") and Secret of the Fire Nation ("The Serpent's Pass" and "The Drill") specials, rallied greatly to promote this two-parter, creating a completely new website with links to a tournament, the Turbonick site, and wallpaper downloads, even including the publishing of a new online game the day before the special's United States premiere.[1]

The idea of an oppressive leader using a secret bunker during war is similar to how Adolf Hitler utilized his own bunker.